Restorative Justice, Youth Violence, and Policing: A Review of the Evidence

Abstract

Restorative justice seeks to bring those that have created harm together with those that have been harmed, and often stands in contrast to retributive and punitive approaches to justice that centre the state in the responses to crime and harm. Restorative justice approaches are becoming increasingly integrated into parts of the criminal justice system, and this paper examines the evidence for such applications in the context of youth violence and policing. The evidence is built on work conducted for the Metropolitan Police Service, the UKs largest police force with over 30,000 officers serving 8 million people in and around London. It does this through a Rapid Evidence Assessment, which utilises the search and sifting principles of systematic reviews on a more limited basis, tailored to the needs of a specific audience, and conducted within a limited timescale. The results of the assessment are broken down into three areas: benefits, challenges, and deployment considerations. The studies identified through the assessment suggest that restorative justice and restorative practice can form an important part of an overall strategy to help reduce both incidents of youth violence as well as the longer-term impacts of that violence when it has taken place. We conclude that in the context of violence and young people, effective restorative justice police practice should embrace a whole-system approach that incorporates multi-agency working and consistently engages with young people at risk of becoming violent offenders or victims.

Restorative justice in safeguarding adults with hate crime and discriminatory abuse: exploring the evidence

“…Restorative approaches have a distinctive ethos but are difficult to anchor theoretically. Every article in this review referred to underpinning principles of restorative justice, but there are (often silent) contradictions amongst the range of ideas that are nested within this term, reflecting some degree of definitional ambiguity (Gavrielides, 2012; Hobson et al , 2022).…”

“…There is significant diversity when it comes to delivery of restorative justice practices. Transferring such practices to safeguarding adults has the potential to create pathways towards restoration and repair rather than a focus on punishment, or safeguarding through risk management (Hobson et al , 2022; Molloy et al , 2023).…”

“…Restorative justice practices constitute a suite of approaches across a broad continuum from formal to informal processes (Hobson et al , 2022). The interventions in the previous paragraph occupy more structured approaches (to differing degrees), but restorative justice practices can also be more creative.…”

“…The benchmark for restorative justice is to restore the harmful effects of crime, but this is difficult because discrimination and hate-motivated harm may be driven by “deep-rooted causes” that are resistant to change (Gavrielides, 2012, p. 3627). As a result, some authors suggest that restorative justice may be more suited to “minor” or “low-level” harms (Gavrielides, 2012; Hobson et al , 2022). By “minor”, Gavrielides (2012) refers to the most common types of hate incident, such as name-calling, intimidation and vandalism, notwithstanding the impact may be more than minor, particularly in cases of repeated harm.…”

Restorative justice in Indonesia corruption crime: a utopia

“…Although not the same, in the scope of criminal law, there are also solutions that emphasize the restoration of the original situation rather than demanding a punishment from the court. The principle of resolving criminal cases is known as the principle of Restorative Justice (Hobson et al, 2022). Restorative Justice was born in Indonesia, where it has thrived, expanded, and been implemented through customary law.…”